


or it turned out we already were

by consumptive_sphinx



Category: We Know the Devil (Visual Novel)
Genre: F/F, Post red ending, Underage Drinking, fake and made-up physics, late night text conversations, psychotic character, self-closeted trans female character, the palpable and conspicuous absence of Jupiter
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-06
Updated: 2020-11-06
Packaged: 2021-03-08 22:27:21
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,660
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27424201
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/consumptive_sphinx/pseuds/consumptive_sphinx
Summary: This year Neptune keeps looking at her classmates in physics class, earnestly discussing gravitational theology and the Jungian-Newtonian model of culture, and thinking,I’m the only one here who’s ever met the devil.Have any of them heard God on the radio?Thus unto Jupiter, which is also the language of gravity —It’s weird. It’s a little bit lonely, and a little bit special, like a secret nobody knows but her — her and Venus. She’s not totally sure how she feels about it.-After Jupiter becomes the devil, after summer camp ends and they all go home, Venus and Neptune keep in touch.
Relationships: Neptune/Venus (We Know the Devil)
Comments: 7
Kudos: 36





	or it turned out we already were

**Author's Note:**

> cw: narration uses he/him pronouns for venus. not maliciously, but they’re the pronouns she’s using for herself while the fic takes place, and the fic is from neptune’s point of view.

Camp’s been over for two weeks and Neptune has finally gotten the smell of DEET and bonfire incense out of her hair, the bug bites have vanished and the sunburn has faded, taking showers in a real shower that isn’t coated in a layer of grime and in water that’s actually hot no longer feels like the height of luxury, and she hasn’t had to clean up the devil in weeks.

She and Venus and Jupiter had swapped phone numbers and emails and promised they’d keep in touch. Their numbers sit uncomfortably in her contacts list. It’s a little sad but it’s not a surprise, and in a month probably it won't even be sad anymore. That’s just how meeting people at summer camp goes.

So Neptune gets bubble tea with Larissa and goes to a movie with Sao and Nereid and snapchats with Laomedeia, fights with her sisters about nothing at all like she always has, and reintegrates herself into her own life — and so when the text from Venus comes at two thirty in the morning she isn’t expecting it.

 _hi_ _  
__how are things?_

It’s a painfully awkward opening, which Neptune supposes makes it classically Venus, but it’s an opening, which is better than Neptune had. So.

 _they’re fine_ _  
__i start school in a week so that blows_

 _oh_ _  
__my school doesn’t start for another three weeks_

_lucky asshole_

_sorry_

_are you kidding me_ _  
__venus. don’t be_ _  
__you do not control my school schedule and you shouldn’t have to apologize about it_ _  
__god_

 _oh_ _  
__...not sorry?_

 _there’s the spirit_ _  
__get em girl_

It was a joke, but — _venus is typing, venus is typing, venus is typing_ — Venus doesn’t reply. Whatever, Neptune thinks, and goes to sleep.

-

Sophomore year is, marginally, better than freshman. Neptune’s sitting next to Laomedeia in physics and she and Sao and Larissa all have history and English together and Nereid’s in her math class and all five of them spend break and lunch together and see each other every day without even having to plan it and this year Neptune can take PE online and never have to run a mile again, and Thalassa is old enough to drive her now so Neptune doesn’t have to spend the length of the drive with their parents.

Every year of her life Neptune has expected it to take at least two weeks to get used to being in school again and every year of her life by the second day it feels normal. This year shouldn’t be an exception, but it kind of is, because this year she keeps looking at her classmates in physics class, earnestly discussing gravitational theology and the Jungian-Newtonian model of culture, and thinking, _I’m the only one here who’s ever met the devil._ Have any of them heard God on the radio? _Thus unto Jupiter, which is also the language of gravity —_

It’s weird. It’s a little bit lonely, and a little bit special, like a secret nobody knows but her — her and Venus and maybe Jupiter too, depending. She’s not totally sure how she feels about it.

 _hey,_ she texts Venus when she’s supposed to be paying attention in math.

 _hi,_ he texts back almost immediately, which isn’t weird when Neptune thinks about it because his school hasn’t started yet but is still a little bit surprising.

 _do you ever think about how weird it is that most people never meet the devil?_ _  
__i’m in math but i just got out of physics and it’s just. Weird._

 _yes,_ Venus says. _yeah, I do._ _  
__it’s weirder I think how we’re not supposed to talk about it?_

 _YEAH_ _  
__like sure you literally met the devil and fought it with a half-working radio but if you bring it up everyone’s going to stare at you_

There’s a long pause — not a ‘venus is typing’ pause, just a regular one — before he says _I wonder what it must be like for Jupiter._

Neptune’s stomach rolls. _yeah,_ she says.  
 _god_

 _like if we can only talk to each other about it,_ Venus says.

If almost nobody meets the devil, even fewer become the devil. Neptune bites her tongue, taps her pencil on the desk, suppresses a cough. Sticks her phone under her math textbook and tries to think about sinusoidal curves and radio waves rather than hands on her face, hands around her wrists, hands around her throat.

-

_do you ever wonder what it would have been like if it had been you?_

It’s almost three in the morning. It’s always the middle of the night when Venus texts. Neptune would ask him why but she’s pretty sure she already knows — nobody wants anything from you at three in the morning, nobody expects anything, and if they do you can tell them “it is almost three in the goddamn morning, fuck off” and they’ll stop.

 _yeah sometimes,_ Neptune says.  
 _why_

 _I don’t know_ _  
__I just_ _  
__was thinking about it_ _  
__and there’s a light in the corner of my eye right now_ _  
__the devil isn’t here tonight but I can still see the light_

There’s a pit in Neptune’s stomach and a choking itch in her throat. When she threw up in the bathroom that night, after getting drunk with Venus but before Venus and Jupiter had disappeared into the closet, there had been something thick and black and roiling in it.

“Don’t tell Jupiter,” she’d said. They had whispered it back and forth to one another all summer, Venus sneaking out of the bunks to stare up at the stars and Neptune stealing snacks from the dining hall, “don’t tell Jupiter, don’t tell Jupiter,” but saying it about that had felt different. Heavier.

 _i think i would have been really, really gross as the devil,_ she says.  
 _jupiter said she was gross but i think i would have actually been_

 _I think,_ Venus says, and then there’s a long gap between messages.  
 _I think I would have been a devil of light_ _  
__eyes everywhere and light in all of them and feathers in my lungs to fly and flooding the sky until you can’t see the stars_

Another long gap. Neptune types a dozen things and then deletes them, and then she waits.

 _I wish it had been me,_ Venus tells her. _It should have been me, I knew it was going to be me_

 _i knew it was going to be me too vee,_ Neptune says before she can think about it too much. _and then it wasn’t_ _  
__it should have been me or one of us but it wasn’t_

There’s a pit in her stomach again. She kind of wishes she could just throw up and get the feeling out and over with. Then she remembers again that night in the bathroom, the too-thick too-black roiling ichor in the sink, Venus holding her hair back and looking horrified, and doesn’t wish that at all.

-

_you know_ _  
__i’ve been wondering_ _  
__what was seven minutes in heaven like_

This is, probably, a bad idea. But Laomedeia left twenty minutes ago and Sao and Nereid left half an hour before that and Neptune’s still up here on her roof, not so drunk she needs to get down immediately but drunk enough to make bad choices.

Venus usually responds immediately when Neptune texts (it makes her feel a little bit bad, but only a little bit. If Venus is constantly watching his phone, well, so is she) but this time it’s ten minutes before the ‘venus is typing’ bar appears.

_I thought I was going to die in that closet_

This was not, at all, the response Neptune was expecting, but Venus keeps talking before she can figure out how to ask.

 _she didn’t mean to hurt me I think_ _  
__except maybe she kind of did?_ _  
__but it was too tight and there were hands around my throat and I thought I was going to die and all I knew how to do was smile and say it was okay_

 _jesus christ venus,_ because she can’t think of anything else to say.

 _we didn’t kiss or anything. I think she chickened out?_ _  
__she wanted to know if it was different being a boy and I asked if we were friends and she made a face and told me I wasn’t like other boys_ _  
__not in that order_ _  
__she said my hair was fluffy_

_your hair WAS fluffy_

Neptune’s hair is long enough that she can sit on it. Sao braided it for her an hour ago, both of them and Nereid and Laomedeia laughing about nothing at all, and Neptune wants to undo the braid and have Venus redo it, except that’s stupid because Venus lives a two-hour drive away.

Neptune does not like boys. She doesn’t hang out with boys. She isn’t friends with boys. She definitely doesn’t text boys at three in the morning, or hold hands with boys while they wait for Jupiter to wake up or while they’re sitting on the curb waiting for their parents to pick them up from camp once Jupiter’s mom has shown up, or hug them goodbye even if it is awkward. But apparently the one thing she and Jupiter reliably agreed on is that Venus isn’t like other boys.

 _I know_ _  
__my dad made me cut it when I got home from camp because it was getting in my eyes_ _  
__and it was getting in my eyes but I kind of miss it anyway_

_i bet you’re still pettable_

_?_

_...nevermind_ _  
__i should get down from the roof probably_ _  
__and throw out the vodka bottle before my parents get back_

She does that, and doesn’t bother to make herself dinner but does eat the last of the ice cream, and almost manages to forget the whole conversation, except for the text from Venus that she doesn’t see until she wakes up the next morning.

 _I still feel hands on my face sometimes and I swear it’s like Jupiter’s there again_ _  
__I don’t know how to make it stop_

-

_there’s a girl in the coffee shop I go to with inch long fingernails,_ Venus says. This time it’s only one in the morning. May as well be afternoon, really. _  
__and she’s always on her phone and every time I hear them clack it’s like you’re here_

Neptune smiles at her phone, despite herself. _i don’t have long nails but that’s cute_

 _oh_ _  
__I guess I thought you’d grow them out after camp?_ _  
__because you cared enough to bring nail polish with you and your makeup looked good even when we were all covered in bug bites and stuff?_

Neptune just kind of stares at that message. Fortunately Venus says more before she has to figure out how to answer it.

_I’ve never been able to figure out how people even grow their fingernails that long, mine break when they get more than a little bit past my fingers_

_...venus,_ Neptune says, _you know those are fake right_

_no? I didn’t_

_well they’re fake_ _  
__nobody has naturally inch-long fingernails_ _  
__they’re made of acrylic and you have to use a dremel grinder to get them the right shape_ _  
__there’s no secret trick to getting your nails to grow out without breaking, it’s just plastic_

 _oh_ _  
__I guess that does make more sense_

She hovers over the keyboard for a couple seconds, and then thinks _fuck it._

 _yeah_ _  
__and a lot of people who have them have really fucked-up nails underneath?_ _  
__i had a friend in middle school whose fingernails were all ridged because she never ate anything and she covered them up with fake ones_ _  
__anyway all this is to say that i keep my nails short and not even just for the obvious reason_

 _oh_ _  
__...what’s the obvious reason?_ _  
__sorry_

Neptune bites her lip to keep from laughing. _really venus?_ she says. _you can’t think of a reason i of all people would keep my nails short?_

There’s a long pause, and then,  
 _OH_ _  
__oh. uh._ _  
__yeah that makes sense_

 _we should meet up sometime,_ Neptune says, still trying not to laugh. _i’ll bring all my favorite colors and you can pick up to ten of them_

It’ll almost certainly never happen. They live two hours away from each other by car and Neptune shudders at the thought of asking her older sister or, worse, her parents for a ride. But Venus is turning sixteen in two months and Neptune will be allowed to get a learner’s permit soon and it would be nice, if they could.

 _I’d like that,_ Venus says, after three straight minutes of ‘venus is typing.’ _I’d like that a lot._

-

The text comes at three in the morning, like texts from Venus always do.

 _maybe I’m reading too much into this but_ _  
__do you think it’s weird how Jupiter never talks to either of us?_

Neptune sighs out loud at the glowing screen, even though Venus won’t be able to see or hear her.

 _vee you are absolutely definitely 100% reading too much into it_ _  
__everyone promises to keep up with the people they met at summer camp and nobody ever does_ _  
__that’s just how summer camp works_ _  
__honestly the miracle is that you and i are still talking_

The ‘venus is typing’ bar comes and goes for two solid minutes before he responds.

 _...I guess_ _  
__idk_ _  
__it just feels like she’s avoiding me?_

She doesn’t say “Oh my _god,_ Venus” out loud to her phone screen, partly because Neptune doesn’t talk out loud to screens and partly because it’s three in the morning and if she wakes up her family she’ll get yelled at, but if she were the sort of person who talked out loud to her phone screen she would kind of want to.

 _she is one hundred percent avoiding you_ _  
__she’s avoiding me too_ _  
__she’s been avoiding both of us since the cabin and she was avoiding me all summer_ _  
__she avoids everything because she can’t admit to it having meant anything_ _  
__i kind of hate it too but it’s just how she is_

This time the response comes immediately.

 _oh_ _  
__wait I thought you said I was reading too much into it?_

Neptune narrows her eyes. In person Venus was wide-eyed and totally guileless — more than just guileless, even; Venus is a black hole from which guile does not return — but when she can’t look at his face or see the way he curls in on himself, makes himself as small as he can, it’s harder to remember that he’s oblivious and occasionally obliviously a bitch, not passive aggressive.

 _you were_ _  
__it’s not weird that she doesn’t talk to us_ _  
__it is expected that she doesn’t talk to us and it would be weird if she did_

There’s another multiple-minute pause while Venus types a message, deletes it, types it again, deletes it again.

_you sound like you’re mad about it_

_i am mad about it_ _  
__obviously i’m mad about it_ _  
__fuck her. why the hell would i be anything but mad about it!_

This time the response comes immediately.

_you’re doing the thing again_

_what thing_

_the thing you did all summer_ _  
__where you act like being mean is the same as being honest_

Pause. Neptune types _fuck you_ and deletes it, types _are you asking to be punched_ and deletes it.

 _what do you want me to say?_ she finally sends. _  
__that she shouldn’t pretend it didn’t mean anything because it did?_ _  
__that i hate when she runs from her feelings and i hate that i can’t shake her until she stops?_

 _I just think when things hurt you should say so_ _  
__you said that about her, right?_

Neptune stares at her screen for — she doesn’t know how long. A long time. It feels like she’s swallowed lead, and now it sits sharp and heavy and uncomfortable in her stomach.

 _goodnight venus,_ she finally manages to type, and puts her phone to sleep, and fails to sleep herself.

**Author's Note:**

> _We hold hands._
> 
> _  
> **Or, it turned out, we already were.**  
>  _
> 
> \- _We Know the Devil,_ red ending, 5am.

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [[podfic] or it turned out we already were](https://archiveofourown.org/works/27804205) by [WolffyLuna](https://archiveofourown.org/users/WolffyLuna/pseuds/WolffyLuna)




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